AN ORIGINAL

It is difficult to make oneself count when one of your teammates goes by the name of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Ever since the Mumbai maestro made his debut in 1989, all cricketing superlatives seem to head in one direction-Mumbai.

Great cricketers like Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly, Anil Kumble and V V S Laxman could have made the headlines consistently, but for the exploits of Sachin. All of these have been match winners, though.

But,one man though has carried a bigger burden. Virendra Sehwag was called a ‘Sachin Clone’ and even today some one called him the protégé of Sachin. The commentators might shamelessly argue that such labeling is some sort of a compliment without recognizing the full import of the contributions made by the ‘Nawab of Nazafgarh’ to the success of Indian cricket in recent times. These epithets, I believe are just an indication of a pretty blinkered view of the world.Sachin is without doubt a great player but that does not make Virendra Sehwag an ordinary player.

Sehwag was and even now accused of having a bad technique for a proper batsman.A number of commentators take pride in pointing out the flaws in his technique when the batsman is out for a small score.But then how have the runs continued to flow from his bat?

Sehwag was also accused during the Chappell era of possessing a spirit detrimental to the interests of the Indian team and the Delhi batsman was left out of the team for a while. This also went against Sehwag as far as the captaincy was concerned.It is a testimony of his temperament that he weathered all these storms and made a smashing comeback into the team.

Even during the last trip to Australia Sehwag could not find a place in the test team and when given the opportunity, he batted for a long time in ensuring the safety of his team.

Few players have batted in the way that Sehwag does in the longer version of the game over a long period of time.In the Multan test, Sehwag hit a six to go to the triple hundred mark. Sehwag is incidentally the only batsman after Donald Bradman to go past the 290 mark in a test innings on three occasions.

Wisden named Virendra Sehwag as the Leading Cricketer in the World for the Year for the second year running.

Surely, this is not a bad recognition for some clone or a poor imitation having very few qualities of the original and in this case the copy sometimes seems to shine brighter than the original.

It is difficult to make oneself count when one of your teammates goes by the name of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Ever since the Mumbai maestro made his debut in 1989, all cricketing superlatives seem to head in one direction-Mumbai.

Great cricketers like Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly, Anil Kumble and V V S Laxman could have made the headlines consistently, but for the exploits of Sachin. All of these have been match winners, though.

But,one man though has carried a bigger burden. Virendra Sehwag was called a ‘Sachin Clone’ and even today some one called him the protégé of Sachin. The commentators might shamelessly argue that such labeling is some sort of a compliment without recognizing the full import of the contributions made by the ‘Nawab of Nazafgarh’ to the success of Indian cricket in recent times. These epithets, I believe are just an indication of a pretty blinkered view of the world.Sachin is without doubt a great player but that does not make Virendra Sehwag an ordinary player.

Sehwag was and even now accused of having a bad technique for a proper batsman.A number of commentators take pride in pointing out the flaws in his technique when the batsman is out for a small score.But then how have the runs continued to flow from his bat?

Sehwag was also accused during the Chappell era of possessing a spirit detrimental to the interests of the Indian team and the Delhi batsman was left out of the team for a while. This also went against Sehwag as far as the captaincy was concerned.It is a testimony of his temperament that he weathered all these storms and made a smashing comeback into the team.

Even during the last trip to Australia Sehwag could not find a place in the test team and when given the opportunity, he batted for a long time in ensuring the safety of his team.

Few players have batted in the way that Sehwag does in the longer version of the game over a long period of time.In the Multan test, Sehwag hit a six to go to the triple hundred mark. Sehwag is incidentally the only batsman after Donald Bradman to go past the 290 mark in a test innings on three occasions.

Wisden named Virendra Sehwag as the Leading Cricketer in the World for the Year for the second year running.

Surely, this is not a bad recognition for some clone or a poor imitation having very few qualities of the original and in this case the copy sometimes seems to shine brighter than the original.